Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device, a method and a system for wireless communication, which is applicable to, for example, a sensor network in which a plurality of spatially distributed wireless communication nodes wirelessly perform data communication with one another.
Description of the Background Art
In the past, as a scheme in which each wireless communication device communicates on plural radio channels, i.e. multi-channel communication, a solution is disclosed by Yosuke Tanigawa, et al., “Multi-Channel MAC Protocol Aggressive Use of Vacant Resources,” Journal of IEICE (Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers) B, Vol. J92-B, No. 1, IEICE, published on Jan. 1, 2009, pp. 196-206.
According to Yosuke Tanigawa, et al., the communication method on multiple channels lies on the premise that channels are divided into one control channel and plural data channels, and in a normal reception-standby state, the control channel is used for a reception-standby operation. Specifically, a transmission source node transmits a control packet including information indicating a channel to be used in data communication over the control channel when data is generated. Then, a transmission destination node, when having received the control packet, transmits a response indicating that the control packet has been normally received to the transmission source node, and switches a channel to a designated channel. The transmission source node, when having received the response, communicates data over the data channel. When the communication is completed, both the transmission source and destination nodes wait for the reception using the control channel again.
In the communication method according to Yosuke Tanigawa, et al., the above-described procedure enables the communication over plural channels, and thus an effective reduction in interference and improvement on throughput can be expected. Further, there is an advantage that temporal synchronization between nodes is unnecessary in implementing this scheme.
However, according to Yosuke Tanigawa, et al., an in-advance sequence for notifying a transmission destination of a data channel is needed before data communication. Further, the in-advance sequence according to Yosuke Tanigawa, et al., is performed for each packet, and this causes a throughput to be lowered by an overhead of control packets, which is a problem. Furthermore, the communication method disclosed in Yosuke Tanigawa, et al., is provided in advance, and this leads a problem in that it is difficult to address interference on the control channel.